Traduction comment\'ee en fran\c{c}ais de la Conf\'erence Bakerienne Sur le M\'ecanisme de l'Oeil de Thomas Young (1800)

TL;DR

This paper provides a French translation and detailed commentary on Thomas Young's 1800 lecture, highlighting his theory of eye accommodation, measurement methods, and discoveries related to astigmatism, with historical and scientific context.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive French translation and analysis of Young's 1800 lecture, emphasizing its scientific significance and historical importance.

Findings

Confirmed the role of the crystalline lens in eye accommodation

Introduced a new method for measuring accommodation amplitude

Discovered the presence of astigmatism in the eye

Abstract

On November 27, 1800, Thomas Young presents for the second time to the Royal Society of London his theory of the musclurity of the crystalline lens, as being the cause of the accommodation of the eye to different distances. This question had indeed been the topic of his very first communication to the Royal Society seven years earlier; from which he had been forced to withdraw in the meanwhile by a series of articles claiming either the priority on his discovery, or the demonstration of it being erroneous. Seven years later, Young turns back to the topic with a very strongly elaborated text indeniably proving the role of the crystalline in accommodation, as well as offering a new and convenient method for measuring the amplitude of accommodation, discovering the default of astigmatism of the eye, and setting the most precise and complete measurement of the living eye of its time. For these reasons, and for the tight intellectual connections between this text and the Theory of Light and Colours Thomas Young will publish a year later, we thought it important to bring a translation and commentary of this text at the disposal of the French audience.